How to recover from an unbootable N900 without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

Folks,

Had the 2nd star "brick" happen today. (Merry Christmas by the way!) Last time it happened someone posted a link to this:

http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba/Flash

Was very useful this time. This allows you to un-"brick" (recover from an unbootable state) without having to reinstall everything due to flashing. Although it postulates that you need to be running linux. I did this through the wife's apple with the flasher-3.5 program. I speculate that the same program for windows will work the same way from the command prompt.

2d

Edit: to correct my "mis-use" of the term brick. Also updated link.

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

you lie!!!!

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

Errr....

perhaps...

this isn't a guaranteed fix for all situations, it should just be tried before reflashing the entire thing.

2d

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

i doubt this will work for every "brick"?!

but its worth a try before completely reflashing, i guess.

/edit:
damn, 2disbetter was faster :>

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

It's too bad that the meaning of brick has evolved so much. Originally (at least when I got here in early 2007) it meant like a brick, i.e., totally dead, even when plugged in. Now what bricked means is pretty unclear, I guess it lights up but does nothing, is frozen, but maybe can be reflashed.

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

Brick is for beyond repair. If your device gets bricked you can use it for spare parts.

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

I have recovered two devices using this method. Bought were stucked in second dot when started.

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

Yeah, "brick" is abused here...
It should rather be called a system in an unbootable state.

but anyway, this (only?) help if you have rebooted the device without shutting it down while being disconnected from power 17 times (yes, weird bug, discussed in another threead)...

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

Yes it should as I believe booting it in R&D mode, erases the boot flags. (Not sure this is the correct terminology)

Orginal post has been edited, to hopefully use the term bricked properly. Hopefully no one was confused or lead to a wrong conclusion based on that mistake.

Hope everyone is having a great day today!

The N900 rules!

2d

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

Updated link:

http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba/Flash

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

It's funny Jebba, I just had to do this again, and referred to the above link in the OP, and was like what the??

I found it though on the page. Almost panicked.

Thanks for your efforts in this regard.

I woudl consider this to be a crucial article for this phone.

(Had mine 2 star brick again after trying to free up some rootfs space... good old r&d mode worked like a champ, although I really need to try the new method you posted. One question on that is whether the usb cable needs to be plugged into a computer, or if you can just plug a dead line in?)

2d

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

FYI, it wont work in Windows. You need a Unix system.

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

Cool, glad I answered in time ;)

The USB cable needs to be plugged into something. Let me know if the "new" way works for you if it should be needed again.

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

So is this confirmed or you've just not had success with it?

In theory it should work, I just couldn't get the phone register properly via usb. My issue with that was I orginally connected the phone via usb through shareport off my router.

Tonight I'll attempt it again, just to see for myself.

However, the past 2 times I've used this method I did use the wife's apple.

2d

Re: How to unbrick without reflashing (maybe this should be stickied)
 

The Flasher works under several versions of Windows. It's just the "how to" that's been writen to descride it under Linux. :)

Chech here if you need for the documentation of the flasher: http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware